


walking in mixed shoes

by cha hugyeon (jeadore)



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Bodyswap, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Favorite Boys era, Goblins, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28268286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeadore/pseuds/cha%20hugyeon
Summary: “It could become a fun concept for a vlog,” Yuchan says, always the happy cheery optimistic.“Mine or Byeongkwan’s vlog?” Junhee snaps.
Relationships: Kim Byeongkwan/Park Junhee | Jun
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: le fantastique - a.c.e fic fest round 2





	walking in mixed shoes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi~! This is my first work for this fandom, so please forgive me if I don't have a fully grasp of their personalities.  
> I hope you like it♥

_Pleasures are dear and difficult to get.  
Feasting the eye, fat grapes hung in the arbour,  
that the fox could not reach, for all his labour,  
and leaving them declared, they're not ripe yet.  
~Isaac de Benserade (Aesop’s fable)_

Maybe Junhee should have realized it sooner.

Maybe in the last, lazy moment before he fully wakes up from the hazy unconsciousness, when he still hasn’t opened his eyes but the body starts to be flooded by sensations.

There was something prickling his nose, like synthetic fur. It was annoying, but not as much as the alarm ring. A repetitive, sharp sound like waving tiger roars and _in crescendo_. He groaned, 5 minutes more, and dumbly patted under his pillow, fishing for his phone. Snooze, snooze, 5 minutes more, snooze. He couldn’t find it, but soon the roars stopped and he smiled to his pillow. 10 minutes more.

Then, a soft voice: “Wake up,” followed by some careless petting.

By the time Junhee finally rubbed his eyes and his eyelids fluttered open, he found out that the synthetic fur comes from a bunch of fluffy, pink Pokémons next to his pillow. That should have raised some —or _many_ — red flags in his mind, but it barely made him furrow his eyebrows.

Park Junhee is, by no means, a not early riser. Yet, responsibilities await.

He didn’t give any of that too much of a thought. Last night, they went to sleep late, emotions flared up by some tensions in the group, and this—the Kirbies, the roaring alarm, the English books on the bedside table—must be some kind of childish get back. Not a completely uncommon thing honestly, yet kind of weird. Comeback got them all too tired to pull a joke like this.

It wasn’t until he looked at his hands that it sank in him. Something was, _is, off_.

Small wrists, big palms, paler skin.

Those didn’t look like his hands _at all_. And yet, they seemed familiar.

And now, looking at the front camera of a phone that is not his, he finds the reflection of a face that is definitely not _his_.

It’s quite possible that a loud shriek slips through ~~his~~ , those lips.

Donghun and Sehyoon’s expressions go from curious to worried, maybe, but he pays them no attention as he bolts into his real room. There, in his bed—a body. _His_ body, Junhee’s body, and it’s sleeping soundly.

He is somewhat relieved, but at the same time: what in the world…?

“Hey, wake up,” he says. No reply. Not even a reaction. That leaves Donghun and Sehyoon out. He jumps onto the bed and shakes his shoulder. “Who are you? Hey!”

“Five more…”

“Who are you? Hey. Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

The other person doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even try to shift apart, to hide himself better behind the pillow or under Junhee’s favourite duvet, nor to smile cutely, so Junhee has a well-founded suspicion. Nevertheless, he’s slightly anxious and very much freaked-out to patiently wait until the other wakes up on his own.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

“Hyung! I said…! What the fuck?!”

Junhee winces. He wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t expect the shrieking, but he didn’t think it’ll be so loud. He recognizes the shock in his now wide open eyes, no more traces of slumber, as he visibly gapes.

“What. Why I… my…?”

“Byeongkwan?” Junhee tries slowly, mollifying him. The other nods, stock-still and completely dumbfounded. “Don’t freak out, but I think we swapped bodies.”

The already wide open eyes bulge out as Byeongkwan scrambles to quickly get up without getting stuck inside the blanket-burrito Junhee turns into sometimes, when he’s too tired to function, with no more energy to waste moving in his sleep. And given that Byeongkwan usually shoves his blankets off, that must mean they exchanged recently during the night—which is of no use.

“Don’t…? What the fuck. Jun?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Freak out a lot,” Junhee laughs nervously as he sits down on the bed. He feels lightheaded, stress escalating in him at a rapid-fire speed and threatening to consume him whole. Soon he might start to munch on his lips to stop the awkward, never-ending giggling. But these are Byeongkwan’s lips, so he shouldn’t do it.

At the same time, these are Byeongkwan’s lips and he has ton of lip to bite on.

Under different circumstances, that’d be a train of thought he wouldn’t chase, a thought he would try to push to the very far and dark place of his mind, along with the itching funny sensations under his skin he should not entertain, but right now? He doesn’t care. He doesn’t even realize it, still too astonished to understand _anything_ himself.

“Junhee hyung? Why are you wearing my body?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

A pattern that Junhee has noticed in the last years: whenever comeback is around the corner, their dorm living room feels crowded and vibrant again. No one’s leaving early for classes nor going back to their parents’ house for the week. It’s loud and very warm and a bit dirty—especially when Byeongkwan knocks over Donghun’s coffee, still not used to Junhee’s body length even if the differences could seem minimal.

It could be so nice or the worst—usually the former. It could bring out sparks of nostalgia about their rookies’ days. It could wake up even a monster.

“Huh?” A different voice says, groggy and confused. “What’s happening?”

By the door, Yuchan is rubbing the sleep off his face and very much failing at it in a very early morning Chan way. His face is swollen, so he must have eaten ramyeon last night and the coordinoonas and CEO will be so nagging and fuzzing about that, but maybe not as much as about the matter at hand.

At Junhee’s brand new pale hands.

“Jun and Byeongkwan traded-off bodies,” Sehyoon explains with a soft voice and, possibly, the worst choice of words. At his side, Donghun eyes bulge as he mutters an off-handed sneer, “The usual.”

“Eh?! Why?!”

From the couch—where he is sitted with his legs wide spread and Junhee’s light blue pyjamas— Byeongkwan clicks his tongue and does an unfunny joke about trying to master astral projection and colliding against Junhee’s _irikyo_. And then he blinks fast and repeatedly, something like horror setting on him, as he adds: “oh, _God_. Jun’s body is already affecting my jokes.”

Junhee neck chops him in retaliation. “No idea. Woke up like this.”

“If is it like a Freaky Friday…?” Sehyoon murmurs, without finishing the question, just unleashing his idea free in the open, in the middle of the crowded dorm living room. Manager hyung will be coming soon, any time now, and it’ll feel even more crammed and galling.

“Maybe you could collide against each other,” Yuchan suggests as he blinks, still astonished and trying to come around the idea that his leader is now his former fellow maknae line member and vice versa.

“Nope. I’ve seen the movie. Doesn’t work.”

“Then what do we do?”

 _Then what do we do_ , indeed.

The downside of being from a small company, from being barely there known idols, is that they don’t have a lot of schedules. Nor a lot of general public recognition, a lot of fans, a lot of staff.

Is a bummer, a constant weight in his chest, an anxious triggering tiny monster clawed at the back of his mind, next to the station of the train-of-thought-you-should-not-chase. But, on the other hand, a perk of being from a small company, from being barely known idols is…that.

Not a lot people know them. Not a lot people know that Junhee is not Junhee, but Byeongkwan and that Byeongkwan is Junhee, but with better outfit choices.

“Why all your clothes are so… tight?” Byeongkwan asks as he tries to detach the fabric of his slim jeans from his thigh.

Junhee snickers, extremely comfy in Byeongkwan’s usual sportwear. “Because is nice clothes. For good looking people. They make you look _gooder good_.”

“Better,” Donghun points out.

Manager shushes them, as distressed as Junhee and Byeongkwan, or maybe even more. CEO is on the phone and she sounds stressed. “Should I cancel your schedule?”

“Maybe we’ll have to cancel the whole promos,” Manager suggests. “We are not sure how long it’ll take to fix it.”

CEO huffs, unhappy. Junhee does too. “No. We’ll make it work.”

Cancelling promotions is not an option in his mind, in their minds. Way off the table. They can’t afford to miss schedules and promotions.

They have invested so many time waiting, practicing, studying Korean folklore and characterising themselves as _dokkaebis_. They have invested so much _money_ , earned thanks to the fans and to the small jobs they carried on the side. They can’t afford to waste them all. They can’t afford to worry or disappoint fans. They can’t afford to speedwalk on their path to be forgotten, to be buried between the hundreds of groups that don’t make it.

And they all have that very much clear, ingrained into their minds, their decisions, their motivation. A.C.E must persist.

“Yeah. I’ve been by hyung’s too long already. I can imitate him perfectly.” Byeongkwan assures them with a confident nod. Then, he yells: “RIGHT?”

“Ha-ha. So funny, Kwanie,” Junhee says and pinches his cheeks. It’s thin, mostly skin and protruding bones, and he feels a weird satisfaction when he bruises it. Dieting and exercising have paid off. “There’s no music shows today and I only have a scene to film this afternoon. And you have _pops in seoul_ , right? We… will be alright. We are good at covers.”

The manager looks at them seriously, murmuring something about him hoping the same and repeating about re-scheduling in the same phrase, somehow. Yuchan is less quiet when he blurts:

“But we suck at our dance practices with parts changed.”

And then, as if he had realized what he just said, his worried face clears up, faking a big, cheery smile so well that is no wonder he’s been casted lately in dramas. Maybe is because nothing about Yuchan is fake—his optimism an infinite source of peace. “You can do it, hyungs. You both are good, you can make it work perfectly for today.”

Deep down, Junhee is not that optimistic. Neither is Byeongkwan.

What they suck at, they make it up with diligence. If there’s something they have mastered by now, is diligence. Persistence, meticulousness, resilience. Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Byeongkwan teaches him the speech of the show and helps him with the pronunciation, word by word. With more patience than usual, corrects him and repeats it again. Perhaps he’s nervous too, judging by the small glances casted to the script in Junhee’s lap, to the script on his own (Junhee’s) hands.

It’s weird to listen to his voice when Byeongkwan speaks. He’s used to link Byeongkwan to a manly yet somehow cute voice—not to that darker, odd tone.

Isn’t like Junhee doesn’t recognize his own voice. Even if in his head sounds different—deeper, reverberating, almost cave-like—, he has monitored himself more than enough in the last seven years to not do it. Be it on studio records or videos filmed with a phone, he can easily pick his voice apart from the rest. He can even notice when he is happy, when he is stressed, when he is barely doing okay—which is kind of funny, because he figures his own feelings out better when he monitors himself rather when he is actually _feeling_ them.

Just like now, that he notices the dark bags under the eyes. Just like now, that he notices his own voice speaking, confident and trembling at the same time. And it’s weird to listen to it because it’s live, it’s right now, and it’s with a bunch of emotions that are not his.

It throws him off more than anything else, than the rest of the body. Or, maybe, as much as the hands.

Is not like Junhee has never wondered what it would be like to be in the place of someone else. To live the life of someone else.

His father called _empathy_ and taught him it was a good thing—to put yourself in the place of someone else, to try to walk in their shoes, to understand them better. Empathy is a valuable quality of good people and good leaders, father said. So Junhee, the ever eager learner, tried to do it again and again with classmates until he mastered, until he transformed it in his virtue.

Growing up, he sometimes really wondered what it would be to be another person—reasons way beyond empathy.

What would it be like to be Cha Hakyeon, the senior trainee at Jellyfish Ent. whose dancing and leadership skills he admired?

What would it be like to be Kang Daniel—survival show winner, First Pick, Nation’s It boy?

What would it be like to be like _anyone_ from BTS? Underdogs from small companies, worldwide famous, big names in the industry?

What would it be like?

Now, he has long accepted it gleefully—he’s Park Junhee, his father’s son, A.C.E’s leader, a man with dreams and responsibilities and enough drive to fulfil them both.

Now, he has long accepted it gleefully, yet is faced with the cognitive dissonance of not only accepting himself and questioning his own place, but of also percibing himself—his face, his hands, his body, his voice—and seeing Byeongkwan’s mannerisms.

“Hey, you did great!” he says as he is monitoring the scene filmed earlier. Night has fallen and they’re both tucked in in one bed—Junhee’s bigger bed, without all those Kirby toys—, the illusory hope of it helping them to wake up tomorrow in their rightful bodies. “You should go to auditions, Kwannie. You’ll be cast for sure,” he adds.

And it’s true. Even if Byeongkwan does poor and awful mimics of Junhee, in front of the camera, he’s really good. Almost outstanding. He slides into fictional characters with an easiness that he has only seen in Yuchan.

“I did,” Byeongkwan nods, a smirk on his face. Is Byeongkwan’s trademark smirk, yet Junhee doesn’t feel it as impactful in his fine lips. “You were really stiff, tho, hyung! Staff were worried I couldn’t do English and dance at the same time! My MC gig is at stake now!”

“Yah! I did my best!” he roars. Then pinches Byeongkwan’s side as he laughs foxily and tries to hide himself under the blanket. “Better you stop wearing my sacred body tomorrow.”

The other snorts. “ _Sacred_. A bit full of yourself, don’t ya?”

Next morning, when he wakes up, he’s staring at pale hands again.

“Your hands are big, Kwannie,” he comments, maybe a bit out of the blue, as he examines them under the bright artificial light of the dance practice room.

Just now he realizes how much you look at your hands throughout the day. When you brush your teeth, when you grab the doorknobs, when you scroll down on your phone, when you eat, when you fall on the floor and try to stand up again.

“It’s to fight those haters better,” Byeongkwan jokes and mimics a boxing pose. “Someone has to do it.”

For some reason, the words sting and stir something inside him. Maybe is some unusual resentment, some old memories, some insecurities or just some plain, piercing pain. Or, perhaps, is everything and nothing at the same time. But the feeling is nasty, itching under his skin, scintillating at the tip of his tongue. 

“Yah, are you saying I don’t do my job right?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he nods, the infuriating smirk back in the lips, so out-of-place in Junhee’s face. “You tend to try to have everything under your control and it's like you sometimes forget to delegate or rely your worries on others…except on Donghun hyung, maybe. That's a lot for one person, hyung. Especially for someone as tiny as you. So I grew my hands to have your back.“

There’s something there. An inflexion in his voice, a thick yet light feeling that Junhee can’t pinpoint, but makes his—Byeongkwan’s—heart beat d _um-dum-dum_ faster. They should go for a medical check-up after this body swap mess passes.

“What kind of bullsh…?” Junhee starts, but is cut off by his own peals of laughter. “You’re smaller than me!”

And even in Byeongkwan’s body—especially in Byeongkwan’s body—, when Junhee laughs, he laughs with his whole body. To the point that he ends up embracing the other person to hold himself up.

So when he finally calms down and looks up, he’s welcomed by a sight in the practice room wall mirror. The reflection of Junhee and Byeongkwan, hugging.

Clinging to each other, not setting the boundaries of where Junhee ends and Byeongkwan begins, but being one big pillar.

It doesn’t feel weird, at all.

After dance practice, the elephant in the room of the day before became sweaty obvious. Yesterday, Byeongkwan defied him with a “don’t be a creep, hyung!” to which Junhee barked about how everything was about human needs and perfunctory functions. Nevertheless, he _sit_ on the toilet every time he wanted to pee. They also skipped showering, even if their clean-freak minds were suffering from it.

Today, beads of sweat cover Junhee’s real temple and one or two sway from his jaw, threatening to fall and damp his shirt. Byeongkwan’s real chest isn’t any better—damp, heaving heavily as Junhee finds himself gasping for air. Despite that, he still hasn’t run out of energy yet, willing to do another run-trough. Byeongkwan, on the other hand, is lying down on the floor, complaining loudly about old tired bones and aching muscles and “hyung, you should stretch every _morning_ ”.

Four hours of re-learning their choreographies, but in different roles have left them exhausted and yearning for a warm shower—warm enough to soothe their fatigue, but not hot enough to remind them of the scorching hot summer that still persist in Seoul in September. At least, they are satisfied enough with the progress they've made—they do not suck anymore!

Junhee firmly believes that they are on their way to dance like a well-oiled machine again, like if this body switching mess had never happened. Or, at least, to dance like it’ll be hard to notice.

They still need more practice, though. Junhee keeps missing his entrance and the beat of the kicks in his second verse and Byeongkwan goes in a different direction every time Sehyoon’s first rap starts.

It could be worse.

“Should we…?”

“What if we shower together?” Junhee suggests. Byeongkwan gives him a strange and exaggerated look—some weird mix of horror, nervousness and worry—so he has the sudden urge to add: “With our boxers on!”

A hesitant nod is all the answer he gets.

It’s fucking awkward at first and throughout it as they try to fit both inside the small shower stall, until they find the hand of it. Until they coordinate their bodies and negotiate their time under the stream of water. Then, it’s quite satisfactory and relaxing to have someone rubbing his back, helping him reach the spots he could never reach alone.

“Hyung, do you think we will ever go back?” Byeongkwan asks in a muffled voice, as he's putting on a comfortable outfit—a mix of Byeongkwan and Junhee’s wardrobes.

“Yeah, I do,” he answers. His voice doesn’t waver, fortunately. He still doesn’t know how they’ll do it, though. And that is making the CEO and the manager and the whole group quite anxious. “What, are you afraid of getting stuck in my body?”

Byeongkwan shakes his head. “Of getting comfortable. Of forgetting who I am.”

Stunned, Junhee stares at him for a long second. At the way he bites on his lips—fine lips, not enough lip to actually bite on—and at the way he is facing him, but not actually looking at him.

“You won’t,” Junhee promises. “I’ll make sure to remind you.”

The smile he receives is small, yet largely grateful.

By the third day, they get moody.

“It could become a fun concept for a vlog,” Yuchan says, always the happy cheery optimistic.

“Mine or Byeongkwan’s vlog?” Junhee snaps.

Today there’s music shows and a few interviews, all packed in one day like if they had to made up for all the time lost in the last few days. Even if Byeongkwan acts like he can impersonate Junhee better than Junhee himself, the brief tiny glances he casts around the room, looking for Junhee, for his help, for his approval, say the opposite. Deep-down, Byeongkwan is being assaulted by the recollection that leadership is more than leading the group greeting.

But Junhee isn't worried, honestly. The other is good with words and manners. More than that—he's charismatic, fun and determined; the kind of personality that anyone would like to follow. Beyond the nervousness, he’ll do fine.

“Don’t take it out on the himbo,” Donghun warns.

“He’s not a himbo,” Junhee hisses, automatically.

“He needs more muscles to be a himbo,” Byeongkwan sneers, his grin growing bigger the second Yuchan yelps, outraged.

“He _isn’t_ ,” he repeats, tone lower and darker than anyone has ever heard in Byeongkwan’s voice.

“We know, we know,” Sehyoon says calmly, almost like a reassurance, as he massages Junhee’s—Byeongkwan’s—shoulder.

They all know. Five years down the road, they all know each other almost to the bits. Yuchan is by no means a himbo, Byeongkwan could be an amazing leader, Junhee could just sit back for once. Stop carrying the hopes and dreams of four members in his shoulders, fade into silence, blend with the background.

He’s tired. Not of being A.C.E’s leader—he would never, _ever_ , wish to stop; he loves it _,_ he loves A.C.E so _much_ —, but of being Park Junhee. Of not being Park Junhee. Of not being sure of who he would like to be anymore.

“Take a breath, hyung. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

The first stage is, arguably, slightly better than the first interview. Their movements aren’t smooth, but at least they are able to follow the choreography correctly and to end the performance without messing it up majestically. If they are lucky, fans will notice that something is _off_ , but won’t be able to pinpoint _what_.

But the interview… The interview is slightly better than a disaster.

Byeongkwan is too nervous to catch the signal and start the group greeting on time, then tries to cover it up by adding a few adlibs to the script. That prompts Yuchan to messily interrupt with his own adlibs so the attention is diverted from a leader that looks so utterly _lost_ and without his usual smile. Then, that prompts Donghun to bicker endlessly with the maknae.

At the end, Junhee is the one that grabs their focus back with a few claps and some well-asserted words, as he also makes sure that smiley Sehyoon doesn’t drift off camera.

The staff must know about Byeongkwan’s gig as MC, so no one is surprised by Junhee’s camera and speech control. Maybe, yes, at how he manages Donghun to behave and participate willingly and how he turns Yuchan’s sudden outburst in something cuter than sudden.

“Sorry, hyung,” Byeongkwan says, voice thin and eerie like a paper. Shrunken shoulders and slightly bowed head, the hanfu looks big and loose on him, like if it wasn’t meant to be wore by him. “I did a terrible job.”

Junhee pats his head and ruffles some bluish dyed hair. “It’s okay, Kwanie. It’ll be better next time.” Then, he lets his hand there, lingering. Like a reassurance that he’s not alone, like a small hug. “I trust you.”

Next interview, Junhee isn’t needed. He could easily step back and let the short Q&A unfold unceremoniously, yet he finds himself eager to talk.

The idea is actually given by Donghun.

They are sitting in their van, on the ride back to the company, sunk in a rare, deep silence. Not uncomfortable, but neither the type that makes everybody at ease. Perhaps is because Yuchan has fallen silent, drowsy and exhausted from the amount of schedules as A.C.E and as Kang Yuchan. Perhaps is because the atmosphere is still tense, their moods still volatile, having had barely improved from that morning.

“Can you please go back?” Donghun asks in a bored tone, voice muffled by Junhee’s shirt. “It’s weird to lean on Byeongkwan. Too tiny.”

Immediately, Junhee huffs and shakes his shoulder. “You think I’m still like this because I want to? Go cling on Byeongkwan. That’s my body.”

“But it’s not _you,”_ Donghun replies, almost like a complaint but void of actual grievance. It’s more similar to an statement, a reminder. _This isn’t you, this isn’t Park Junhee._ Park Junhee doesn’t have narrow shoulders nor an accentuated S-line. Park Junhee has a chiselled jawline, small cute dimples and protruding cheekbones. Park Junhee claps when he talks and when he laughs, not Kim Byeongkwan. “Didn’t you guys find any way to solve this?”

Like if he needs the reminder.

“Yeah, we’re just saving it for the next comeback,” he answers, dry and sardonic. He gets shoved in return. “Huh, we _tried_ , remember? We smacked our bodies. My head still hurts.”

Donghun giggles. Then he says something between a snicker and another statement: “Maybe you’re not smacking the right things.”

“What do you mean?” Junhee blinks, confused. “We’ve been looking it up in naver and CEO-nim keeps telling manager to hit the library, but nothing.”

“What does Byeongkwan think?”

Junhee shrugs. “I’m not sure. We have some sort of… dissonance.”

“I know. All those fights.”

As if he were conjured, Junhee straighten his back. He has to breathe a few times before he can open his mouth again. A spot in his mind lights up like red fire alarms, something like fear and acknowledgement carving in him, recognizing that this is not Park Junhee’s behaviour.

This could be denial, or something worst.

And yet:

“Not fighting,” he states, determined. “Fighting implies we hurt each other. Most of the times, we don’t even remember what we were arguing about. So no fighting. We are just… tense.”

Donghun lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Ohhh, _right_. The tension. The UST.”

“The what?” he asks, bewildered. He can imagine that is not something utterly nice given the other’s tone, given his naughty grin. But the meaning throws him off his axis. _Unsolved sexual tension_. “We are not… unsolved. I mean, no that kind of tension!” he shrieks. The other occupants of the van turn to them in askance. “You know what, hyung? Fuck off. Go cling on Channie.”

He lied. The reason they were fighting, _arguing_ , about is crystal clear and latent in his mind.

“Park Junhee!” The choreographer snaps. “Did you even listen to me the other day? Aren’t you guys a group focused on performing? This was so _sloppy_. Especially you! And you were supposed to talk with them!”

Byeongkwan dips his head. His fists are clenched, white impotence and pointy knuckles, but he doesn’t do anything further than a deep, sincere bow.

“We are sorry, hyung. We’ll work harder,” Junhee quickly steps in and promises.

The choreographer looks slightly taken aback for a moment, some curiosity dancing in his eyes, then he sighs. “You did okay, Byeongkwan. Not as great as always, but you weren’t _that_ off. Just a bit more concentration next time.” And Junhee wants to laugh. Junhee wants to crack his pressed full lips and laugh so, so much. Hysterically, even.

He doesn’t do it, though. It’d be extremely disrespectful to both, the choreographer and Byeongkwan himself. Byeongkwan, who would never do this kind of things. (Junhee, under normal circumstances, neither.) Byeongkwan, who would always dance sharp and charismatically in that inherently-Byeongkwan-way that looks so effortlessly easy, yet he’s putting his maximum efforts in every move. Byeongkwan, who would digest a dance routine in a few minutes and then dance it as if his life is depending on it, even many years later.

Kinaesthetic memory. That’s what Sehyoon called it once.

Byeongkwan is a skilled kinaesthetic learner—his body apprehending the moves and remembering them a mile faster than anyone else, executing the right steps even without the need to count the steps, but just listen to the beats. At some point, his body dances on his own. Lithe, fluid, sharp, perfection at its finest.

On the other side—Junhee isn’t. Junhee is a hardworking experimental learner. Junhee needs to try something by himself, analyse it and then do it over and over and over again, until he reaches something akin to perfection. (Perfection doesn’t exist. Satisfactory, maybe.)

So he feels bad for Byeongkwan. He’d been called out by their vocal trainer earlier when he didn’t reach the notes right and he’s been called out now by the choreographer just because Junhee’s body has yet to experiment the dance routine many times more to have it down. Meanwhile, Junhee now just have to let himself go—when he concentrates the most is when he messes up the most.

“Hyung,” his own voice says, timidly, contrite. So low and tiny—a murmur. It’s weird. Junhee never speaks like that. But again, Junhee never hears his own voice except when he monitors the videos posted on their YouTube channel. “Why didn’t you tell us anything?”

“All the members are pushing their own limits, Kwanie. No need for me to pass the bad vibes. Or make them have a bad time. Or let them be in a sour mood. Do you recall Donghun hyung being all sarcastic and biting? Not nice.”

Scoffing, Byeongkwan chokes a cackle and, more than anything, reproves Junhee’s words. Or his own words, his behaviour. Hard to be sure when, for once, Junhee’s face is blank canvas.

They cast a few glances to the other members, to where Sehyoon and Yuchan are re-enacting Junhee and Byeongkwan’s couple move in the choreography to help Donghun get it right. Or maybe because they find it funny. It looks like they are interchanging souls.

“Hyung,” his own voice calls again, timidly and tiny, so trembling and so unlike Junhee. But also, so unlike Byeongkwan. Maybe it’s part of a new thing, a junkwan thing, souls meshed together. “He said _next time_.”

“We’ll be in our rightful bodies for then,” Junhee assures him and pets his head. “And if not… we’ll be more prepared.”

“Hyung. I’m sorry for the other day, I didn’t mean… I, dead weight…”

Junhee smiles. He stands on his tiptoes to reach his body’s height and slungs an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay. You were tired. We are all tired.”

“Still…”

“Don’t worry.”

At midnight, when the dorm is silent and Seoul becomes a shushed chaos, Junhee slides into Byeongkwan’s side on the couch and shamelessly picks on his _samgyupsal_. Byeongkwan bats his sticks away, protecting his midnight snack as if it were the most precious thing in the planet.

“Don’t! My face will look bloated in the morning.”

“First,” Junhee says as he manages to steal a piece of pork belly, “I am hungry too. And, second: yah!! Are you taking advantage of _my_ body?”

Byeongkwan points at his body—Junhee’s body— with a greasy stick. “You’re not the one on a diet, hyung.”

“But _samgyupsal_ …”

“I was craving it,” Byeongkwan confesses, interrupting his laments. “I don’t usually snack, but suddenly I wanted it _so much_ I had to order? I don’t know. Are likings related to the body, hyung? Are we changing our likings? Our personalities? Or is it just a consequence of trying hard to impersonate each other?”

Shrugging, Junhee adjusts better on the couch. Slightly leaning against the other’s side, warm skins touching where the light fabrics of their clothes don’t cover, an arm slung around the other’s shoulder naturally. A comfortable spot; a place from where Junhee wouldn’t like to move.

It’s getting closer to the type of train of thought he wouldn’t chase, almost like stepping on the edge of the very far and dark place of his mind.

He’s even feeling the itching funny sensations under his skin when he whispers:

“Maybe we are just accepting other things.”

“I still would rather not eat anything green,” Byeongkwan snorts, avoiding the lettuce brought by the restaurant. Instead, he dips a piece of pork belly in _ssamjang_ until it’s completely daubed. “What about you, hyung? Have you _accepted_ anything mine?”

Junhee stares at the way he eats the piece of meat, in one mouthful. Some spicy paste end up in the corner of his lips, smudging his lips and his cheek, painting stark dark red in his skin.

There’s something weirdly attractive about it that Junhee can’t pinpoint—those are his fine, now chapped lips. He’s been seeing them for 26 years now in the reflection.

“Yeah, I have. Or maybe I’m accepting something about myself,” he acknowledges. Then, he quickly cleans the paste away with his thumb, caressing the taunt cheek in the process. “Kwannie, if I kissed you right now, I’ll be kissing you or myself?”

The other open his eyes wide lets a strangled snort out. “So full of yourself.”

And yet Byeongkwan’s the one that moves closer, closing the gap between their faces. Charismatic, fun, determined—the kind of person anyone would like to follow. Lips clash together unceremoniously, warm and pushy connexion, souls meshing in one.

There’s nothing ground-breaking nor breath-taking, but something click right.

Pieces of puzzle setting into place.

Maybe Junhee must have realized earlier.

Maybe in the last, lazy moment before he fully wakes up from the hazy unconsciousness, when he still hasn’t opened his eyes but the body starts to be flooded by sensations.

There was something prickling his nose—blond died strands of hair. It wasn’t annoying, not as much as the stiffness in his muscles. Their dorm couch isn’t the best place to fall asleep in, no matter how comfortable it looks nor how the other body clinging to his hums, contented.

When he finally opens his eyes, the first thing he glances at are his hands. Tanned skin, medium-sized hands and proportional wrists, slightly dry—like he had forgotten to apply cream for the last days. He moves his fingers and the knuckles doesn’t pop up, but his veins do. It may be a weird thing to be happy about, but he can’t help and smile brightly in wonder.

The second thing Junhee notices is Byeongkwan, snoring softly into his neck. Once again, Junhee is affronted with the dissonance of wanting to scream out of happiness and tell Byeongkwan, tell the world, that they’re normal again. And, yet, he also wants to let Byeongkwan sleep away the stress of these last days.

His heart beat faster every time Byeongkwan breathes into his skin and unconsciously pecks his collarbones—so the choice becomes easier.

Park Junhee makes a quick decision of ditching empathy for once, of taking a break from his usual self, and act incredibly selfish for once. Caress Byeongkwan’s waist, calm his worries, bask in the moment.

“Junhee-yah?”

The third thing he (kind of begrudgingly) notices is Yuchan sitting in front of them, fully awake and with a serene expression on his face. He also speaks softly, like he doesn’t want to intrude or like he is used it.

“Is it you, Junhee-yah?” he asks and gives him a small smile, something between affected and delighted, when Junhee nods. “Good. But I think we have another issue.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!♥ Any comment or kudos would be truly appreciated, especially if you let me know your theories about why the bodyswapped! 
> 
> Also thanks mod for the patience & this fest. If I didn't find about it, I may have never write for a.c.e nor fall deeper in love with the boys.


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